The Love and Snark of Draco Malfoy
by lezonne
Summary: Charlie had never loved someone in the world so much, for no one could compare to his Dragon. But the world is a cruel, toxic thing, and not everyone loved Draco like he did. Tragedy. Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round 5.


**A/n:** Hi there! Here's my entry into the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round 5! Thanks to my beta **lozipozivanillabean**!

**Optional Prompt 1**: #6 Candle

**Optional Prompt 2**: #12. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." - To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee (IMPLIED)

**Optional Prompt 3**: #13 Forgetful

* * *

I think a part of me died when they buried him in the earth. Part of my soul might've journeyed with him into the afterlife that day, the day I missed because of work. It's been almost a year since his death, an accident until proven guilty case, but I know the truth behind the matter. Someone ended his life because he was a hated man.

But I didn't hate him, not really. Actually I think I loved him. More than the dragons, or Romania, or school. I loved him because he was my own, personal dragon. Or at least, that's what I liked to call him.

But now he's gone, torn from my fingers by the cruel hands of reality. I hadn't seen him in the months prior to his death, mostly because work kept me away, but we planned to declare our love to the world the week he died, when I got a leave of absence from Romania to come home. We were supposed to get married.

That wouldn't happen now, not now he's buried beneath the earth. A slight drizzle pelts down on me as I stand before the gravestone today. He was shunned from his own family burial ground because he didn't live up to his father's expectations. It was a lonely grave, hardly ever receiving visitors, save for the random hater who came by to cause havoc. Ron told me about one, who actually destroyed the gravestone. It took some time for Hermione to reform, but she did it, and I'm ever so grateful to her for that.

I'm sure Draco is too, wherever he is. His rivalry with Harry and the others ended before a masked figure took his life. I only wish I knew whose fault it was, so I could avenge him.

Old, waxy candles sit beside the gravestone, the sole remainders from those who came to the burial, watching an old enemy be set into the ground. I couldn't attend, or perhaps it's better to say that I wouldn't, for the memories were too painful, too real.

I had a ring to give to him when I returned, an engagement ring that would show our true love for each other. Since his death, it had been sitting around, burning a hole in my pocket as the days dragged on, my heart feeling more and more weighed down as I learned to acknowledge the fact that he wasn't coming back.

Not accept, just acknowledge.

He would probably call me a daft, lovesick idiot if he could see me now. Draco always had a way of saying sweet things in a not-so-sweet way. I liked that he wasn't all sunshine and roses, but that he had a bit of danger about him.

Apparently, he had too much danger about him. His livelihood cost him his life.

"_You're not worrying about me again, are you?" Draco asked, a perturbed look crossing his face. I had another stint in Romania for six more months before I could stay in England long enough to get back and be married, and he was surprisingly willing to wait. That being said, the roles were reversed back then. I was the one going to another country to handle dangerous creatures, whereas he was staying within the familiar city of London, where the darkest dangers lurked in the shadows, as the forms of fallen Death Eater's out for revenge._

Draco didn't switch sides before the war ended; he didn't have it in him. Held under his father's shoe by expectations and family obligations, he remained loyal to Voldemort until his defeat. And even once the Dark Lord was defeated, Draco didn't find life any easier. Not only did he have personal matters to attend to, but he also had to deal with becoming an outcast. Britain wasn't too merciless to those who followed the reign of a dictator, and he quickly found it hard to make friends.

The first time I crossed paths with him was back at the Burrow, when Hermione and Ron brought him back after finding the man beaten down, bloody and delusional in an alleyway. Ginny did a quick analysis of him, considering that she did work at St. Mungo's as a nurse, and declared that he wasn't going to die or anything. She drugged him up to numb the pain and stop the insults, and I offered up my bed so he'd have a place to rest. Later I went up and ran into him.

For having just been beaten down, he recovered quite fast. Ginny said he could be asleep anywhere from one to six hours, and the fact that he was up after only two surprised me. What surprised me more was the fact that he was shirtless in the empty room, looking at his unmarked torso as though searching for marks that should be there.

When we first spoke he'd been delusional and confused. Back then I didn't know that I was going to end up falling in love with the prick, and the conversations exchanged between us were less than pleasant. I ended up seeing him several more times before returning to Romania, and over the following weeks something sparked between us.

We both felt it from the moment that he bumped into each other a few days after he left the Burrow. An energy soared between us, reaching down to my toes. I was surprised how strong my feelings towards him were, and he seemed to feel the same. When people are destined to be together, they tend to have connections like that.

A week later we kissed. It was an accident, seeing as he'd been in a hallway with a girl that ran away to puke and I was stumbling along, my damn tolerance potion forgotten somewhere along the way to the club, and I knew I was going to have to sit down. Draco was rather tipsy himself, and was talking to someone who wasn't even there anymore when I happened along. He turned without even looking my direction and kissed me, thinking he'd won over the girl beside him. I had been slouching against the wall, and had appeared shorter than I actually was. Boy was it a shocker to him when he realised I had a moustache.

He tried to pull away at first, he really did, but something within me locked onto the sensation of his lips, grabbed it tight, and I got lost in the sensation of the kiss. Putting my hand on the back of his head I kept him from running and he grew rigid against me, disgusted at the time as to what we were doing. In the coming weeks, he got over it.

An accident happens one time, can be pushed away and you can pretend to forget the whole experience, even though you can't erase the fact that it happened. Twice is a coincidence, sometimes a bad one, and three times is too much to use the word accident anymore. Draco Malfoy was just as drawn into our attraction as I was, and even he couldn't deny it.

We didn't continue our dangerous affair when I left for Romania, though he did owl me like a true friend while I was there. When I returned, a silent agreement passed between us that things weren't yet over, and we picked up where we left off, keeping things secret. We even went so far as to get intimate.

It was marvelous really to try something new, to explore and be explored without any limitations. Before him, I really didn't see anything special in men outside of friendship, but he changed my perception on things. The day we agreed to get married was the happiest day of my life. I would be gone for another four months in Romania, and when I returned we would reveal everything to everyone.

Unfortunately things don't always go according to plan. Harry and Ginny ended up finding out about us in a very awkward way, and I'll never forget the scarred looked on both of their faces. Not exactly how I intended for things to go, but that's how it got out to my family. Ginny blurted it out before we could even really talk about it. Thanks, Ginny.

Draco, for his part, was as composed and snarky as ever. He was rather amusing to listen to as the flabbergasted people staring at us sputtered at his comments.

"_So the two of you really-"_

"_What else do you think we do Potter? Read?"_

"_But you're Malfoy-"_

"_So glad you picked up on that twin one."_

"_I didn't realise the two of you were-"_

"_Weasley, if you make a pun about it I will personally shave your head. Just because it's not your thing doesn't mean it's an impossible, foreign thing."_

"_But… with my brother!?"_

"_Many times." _Ron practically fainted when he'd heard that.

"_And, this is serious?" Hermione asked, being the voice of reason amongst the chaos, "This isn't a strange test or something, and Malfoy isn't possessed? It's legit?"_

"_I told you they would cross-examine everything," I muttered, gripping Draco's hand, but he just rolled his eyes, used to Hermione, Harry and Ron from school._

"_I'm not under a spell if that's what you're asking," he snapped, placing a hand on his hip. "And I'm not here to embarrass Charlie either if that's the question. I'm here because he makes me happy, and because we're together. Merlin, and you people think I'm prejudiced?"_

"_It's a surprise is all," Bill commented, looking my way. "There wasn't much of a warning."_

"_One doesn't need a warning," Draco spat, rolling his eyes. "Don't any of you people know the feeling of being in love?"_

No one really questioned us after that. I think my family were too stunned that he used the 'L' word; much less that it was attached to me. They ended up finding out too soon, and although some of them were apprehensive about the relationship at first none of them poked fun at us or disowned me. My parents raised respectable children, and one should never judge merely based on a person's sexual preference. All my siblings understood that, and after a few days, they could even fully accept it.

When I left for Romania the last time, the whole family knew that we were going to get married. When I got back we were supposed to announce it publically and get the media talking, just for the sake of it. We agreed that it would be best to announce it ourselves than to let rumors begin that we would later have to face. Besides, we weren't ashamed of ourselves, so why hide?

Draco was going to wait for me before sharing the news. I think even Ginny started talking to him about wedding plans, which seriously disturbed Ron. He was too confused about who was the 'girl' in our relationship to actually put the pieces together. I never really revealed who was who in the relationship to anyone else either. If we both chose to love a man, then what good did titles do?

We were out hunting down a rare dragon when the letter came to me, shattering my concentration. Out and about looking to capture and save a real species wasn't the place to be distracted, and we were in too deep to let anyone, even me, leave. One of the men was already sent back to base fatally wounded and my boss couldn't let me go until we had captured and saved the dragon. It didn't matter anyway though, for the letter from Harry told me that Draco was already dead.

He took six fire shots to the body before being killed via wand. The killer had no mercy, and I was informed later that he received no aid. Someone heard the commotion, but it was too late. Draco died instantly from the killing curse, and what was left behind of him got reported instantly. In a matter of seconds he was ripped out of my life, all due to a vengeful man.

He didn't deserve to die; no one really deserves to die. The killer probably didn't know him, didn't speak to him, and probably didn't even like him. But who the hell has a right to decide that it's time for someone to die? War brings blood, but everyday life shouldn't. And Draco was the casualty of an angry war veteran. Someone felt they had been wronged, and they took it out on him. It was entirely unfair.

No one had a right to rip Draco away, no one. The blonde was turning his life around, straightening out a business that for so long only dealt with the dark arts, and trying to get his act together so they could start their lives together without any mishaps. And then he was murdered in cold blood.

It wasn't fair. No one knew Draco like I did. No one ever stepped into his mind like I did, heard him wail in misery and held him through his war-ridden dreams at night when death lingered in his head. No one tried to understand the position his late father put him in like I did, or how he was trying to get his mother to smile again. No one else knew that he had a crush on Hermione once when they were little, or that he couldn't tolerate chocolate. No one else knew his hardships, his likes and his dislikes, his dreams like I did.

And now, it was almost like none of it mattered. He would never get to share those things and thoughts with anyone else. He lost his life and his chances at the mere age of twenty.

And I, I braved the rain instead of staying inside, I stood on dewy grass in the bitter cold instead of sitting at home with my family in a warm home on my first day back to be with him, a fallen lover. Our dreams danced like lost memories in front of my misty eyes as I stared down at the grave of Draco, the only keepsake I had of his. Nothing of his was in my name yet, and I couldn't even get one of his sweaters from the Manor. I probably wouldn't be able to afford the item anyway.

Falling down on my knees, I felt the tears trickle down my face. In one hand I held a damp piece of paper, the final letter he sent to me while I was abroad, the words getting washed away by the rain as I wept. The other was outstretched blindly before me, as though waiting for Draco to grab it. But this would never happen again and deep down inside I knew it.

The last thing I ever said to him in person was _I love you. _I just never realised that the last time would be _the_ last time.

I sat there on the ground for a long time, tears streaming down my face. I didn't know where I would go from here, much less how I could pick myself up, but it felt like the right place to be just then. Just as he suffered in my absence, I would suffer in his. Only I wouldn't taste the breath of death and leave this earth. Instead I would live on after him, a shell of my former self.

Laying the ruined letter in front of me, I bent forward and kissed the slick tombstone, not caring a bit about the action or if anyone was watching me. I embraced the slab of stone, wishing it would morph into my former lover, warm and alive, instead of dead and cold.

I wept for Draco, I wept for his death and my loss, and I wept for myself. And I knew, ever since I heard the news that it would take a very long time to move past my first true love.

* * *

**A/n:** Go ahead and leave a review if you'd like! First time at slash.


End file.
